


More Human Than I Am

by x_los



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M, Season/Series 01, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 20:36:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4235769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avon has two problems: his own accidental vampirism and Blake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Human Than I Am

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Aralias

There is a type of vampire that comes as a friend. The vampires of Goethe, Byron and Polidori, _Varney_ , are all intimate companions before they are vampires as you or I would understand them. Carmilla, too, is too much a friend (and too much something desperate, something more). Before the late Victorian era's productions came along to regulate them, to taxonomize the unknown (as the British Victorians taxonomized all the people and other resources within an empire that spanned and brutally regulated the known world), vampires drifted in and out of categories. What you or I 'know' about them simply hasn't been reliably true for very long. Even the simplest things—notions of having _had_ to have died, and of then having returned as a predator—do not hold the early vampire, whose strongest identifying characteristics are some affiliation with the supernatural and an interconnected ability to draw people to them.

Kerr Avon had never wanted to come as a friend, and Kerr Avon had never died. He had never even been particularly good at drawing people to him, and he had rarely wanted to. There had been an accident, long before he met even Anna, on a prospective colony world. The planet had been unfit for human habitation, but possibly useful as a server-cluster, one of the many planets dedicated to housing an ancillary chunk of the Federation's computer infrastructure. The Federation had abandoned its hopes for the planet in the end (the atmosphere would make the infrequent but necessary maintenance checks too much of a bother: too much pollen for standard filters, and the next grade up was slightly too expensive to justify), which somehow rendered the whole thing even more ludicrous in Avon's estimation.

Avon himself could only guess at the details of how what had happened to him had occurred. Ultimately, they were not important. Some animal, some insect, a bite he hadn't noticed. Perhaps some chemical compound in his inoculations, a medical error––a trace of the blood serum they used in mutoids left in one of the many vials he’d been injected with by the military exit-physician. A reaction with the atmosphere when he'd had to switch out a broken mask and had, for an instant, inhaled the air--the only member of the party to do so. Avon wasn't stupid, and he had known better than to take an injury he'd acquired on an alien world to standard Federation doctors. The injury would very probably be more interesting to them than he was, and he'd spend the rest of his short life on a table. No, better to take leave after his exhausting trip off-world, to play up his image as a difficult genius and demand to be dropped off on the nearest civilized planet, to lie alone in a rented room, gasping, trying to get an independent, off-the-books doctor to come to him. But he'd run through his lists of contacts without alighting on anyone suitable he could trust not to turn him over to the authorities on this backwater world, and had suffered the change alone. It had been agonizing, and the unknown nature of it had terrified him--but then medical experiments or torture might well have been worse, and would have provided their victim with no better certainties.

When he’d carefully, slowly made his way back to Earth, Avon had found it easy enough to get Tynus to formulate an inoculation he could take every three months, which he could easily make himself afterwards, and which he successfully cited as a medical necessity even when he was tried and held by the Federation. Tynus hadn't asked too many questions, because he'd owed Avon, and this had been a strange request, but nothing compared to that debt. The inoculation kept Avon safe from Earth's sunlight and radiation similar to it. He didn't seem to have much trouble sleeping or staying awake when he needed to, and he didn't feel much of a craving for the soil of Terra or a coffin-bed. On a few occasions while on the run, circumstances had enabled him to discover how quickly he healed, now. He faked sustained injuries, occasionally remembering to mention some twinge, because revealing the truth would be… awkward. He had a sneaking suspicion that he might not be able to die by natural causes. But that would do him little good if it led back to the tables he'd avoided initially, or if the _Liberator_ exploded. And there were still plenty of other unnatural causes that might do the job. Avon didn't know the limits of his condition, and wasn’t keen to test them too far, given that such experiments might prove fatal.

The _Liberato_ r's food generators provided him with something iron-rich enough to push down the rising, buzzing, desperate hunger that suffused his brain when he neglected to drink for too long. It was, ironically, easier to keep himself fed here than it had ever been on Earth.

For a few years since the accident, Avon had kept himself sated and safe. He'd been guarded, and hadn't even told Anna the nature of his condition. But often, _often_ , he had to repress an uncomfortable urge to feed from people.

It wasn't always the same. He'd wanted to suck Anna's neck like he'd wanted to lick her out, passionately and painlessly. He wanted, in periods of immense irritation, to feel the crunch of bones in his jaw, to drain anyone who threatened him dry. Attractive people he passed in the corridors of Freedom City had tugged at his senses, and he had been forced to check himself before he craned his head to look back at their blood-flushed faces, their necklines, the deltas of veins that spread across their hands.

And when he was captured and held in a cell with several other _Liberator_ crew members long enough to get hungry, he pretended to stare fixedly at the wall behind Blake, when really he was watching the pulsing vein there in Blake's throat, the way Blake's neck moved when he breathed, when he spoke.

The obsession with Blake had built since they'd met on the _London_ , starting slowly and then escalating exponentially, at an alarming rate. It was Blake his now too-keen sense of smell picked out in a crowd; Blake who he could feel moving, corridors away; who he could hear breathing over the hum of the engines in the night--or did he only imagine that? Sometimes he was angry enough at Blake to want to sink his teeth into him and bring him to his knees mid-argument. He wanted not to break him, but to make Blake bend and whimper and say 'I'm sorry Avon' as his blood welled rich in Avon's mouth and his hands clutched feebly at Avon's arms. There was so much rage and purpose and life in Blake, and Avon wanted him as a human, wanted to touch Blake whenever he liked and to be his partner and survive this conflict and share whatever mundane problems might await them on the other side, but his sickness made him feel the want as an inhuman craving bordering on insanity. He hated what Blake did to him: how Blake made him irrational and something other than himself, how Blake imbued him with human frailty even as his hold over Avon stripped Avon's remaining humanity away.

Avon didn't know what being bitten would feel like--he'd never trusted himself enough to let anyone find out and report back to him. But he wanted it to hurt Blake, like knights had been hurt in ancient ceremonies that had used pain to seal vows of fealty the knights could never forget. He wanted to take some of Blake's bright life to into him and to let it illuminate him from the inside. He imagined it would feel like sex pouring through them, spreading over them both. He wanted it to bind them. He wanted to make Blake gasp and shake for him, to affect him in a way no one else ever could. And he wanted Blake to be safe and whole afterwards, and to want him to do it again and again.

How had the rot of madness set in? What _was_ this? A result of his altered biology--or was that merely attempt to rationalize and deny his own responsibility for a purely emotional phenomenon? Was it a biological _reaction_ to a human problem? He'd fallen stupidly under someone's influence, therefore his body responded accordingly.

As with the transformation itself, Avon could only guess at the details, and ultimately, they were not important. What mattered was that he couldn't sleep properly, that he was losing his grip, that he was terrified that the next time he was furious or heated he'd bite down into Blake’s elegant neck, if he didn't do something to stem this. But not fighting with Blake was itself dangerous and impossible.

He'd never had much respect for men who couldn't control their bodies, and he'd never had trouble governing his own, before the accident. But the change had forced him to become more tightly controlled against temptation, and Blake had come like a storm that snapped an aged, too-rigid tree that had forgotten how to bend.

Driven by stupefying, overwhelming want, he'd made a clumsy pass at Blake in a quiet moment. They'd been alone on the flight deck. Avon had bolstered his courage before coming by drinking two full glasses of iron-supplement (then brushing his teeth––he tried never to let anyone smell it on him). He didn't want to hurt Blake. He didn't think he'd _have_ to bite him, and he believed he could control himself, even in the heat of the moment, provided he didn't take unnecessary risks, like getting too near Blake if he cut himself. He'd managed with Anna. He just _needed_ some part of Blake in his mouth––the fingers Blake kept biting seemingly to taunt him; Blake's vital, heavy cock; any salty Blake-smelling skin he could suck hard enough to bruise (Blake's blood rising to the surface to meet him, like it wanted Avon back).

Blake had made some friendly comment about the utter boredom of cruising through empty deep space. Avon had suggested, as casually as he could, that they might keep each other occupied. Why not? It needn't mean anything.

After a moment, Blake had responded, in a friendly, unguarded fashion, that he didn't really go in for casual sex, and had turned the conversation to something else. He seemed not even to have the decency to feel awkward about this humiliating, stupid exposure, which of course Avon had tried to pretend had been minimal. Avon had left the flight deck soon afterwards, and had accidentally ripped a datapad in half in his frustration (he had something like enhanced strength, but it was difficult to control and unreliable, and he was rather afraid that one tense day he'd break a vital piece of equipment in the field and they'd all be blown to ashes).

He'd not really let himself believe Blake might say no, even as he'd not really thought he might be that lucky. He'd just needed it so deeply that the aftereffects had hardly occurred to him.

And there _were_ aftereffects. The more attached to Blake and conscious of the lack of him Avon became, the more difficult Avon found it to control his temper. In the week after Blake flatly turned him down, Avon couldn't stop himself from being particularly vicious to Blake in arguments about his plans, petty and unhelpful as it was. Blake, especially irritated with Avon, responded by hardly looking at him, speaking to him or coming near him. He stopping taking Avon into his confidence all together. Avon felt like he might be getting seriously ill. He still didn't know whether this hunger was some part of a––bond or thrall or something equally ludicrous. What happened, if whatever this was didn't get answered by its object? Avon wondered what would happen to him if he left entirely, or if Blake got himself killed? Was he a danger to the others? Should he go? Could he make himself go? If he walked away, would he find himself blindly staggering back when the night and the hunger set in?

At the end of that wretched week, the universe finally smiled on Avon. Blake tersely ordered Avon to come down with him to some random-coordinate-named planet the Federation had popped a base and nothing else on. Uncharacteristically, Avon said nothing contrary in response. Perhaps he should have put on a show of reluctance, but he caught at this stupid errand like a life raft.

As he entered the teleport bay, Jenna, manning the teleport controls, frowned at him. Avon looked pale and like he hadn't slept in days. Perhaps she'd better go in his place?

"And what," Avon snarled, terrified of being replaced and losing this chance to find out whether being near Blake for a few hours would make him feel any better, "do you intend to do once you're down there? Or have you suddenly acquired an A1 computer-ranking through a correspondence course?"

Jenna refused to be stung. "You don't look well. You haven't for some time, and you won't let Cally speak to you about it. I'm trying to help you, Avon, believe it or not."

"Stick to what you're good at. Flying and maintaining a limited, mercenary interest in other people."

Jenna had slammed down the teleport control lever like she wanted to smack him, and they'd landed a little hard.

"Down and safe," Blake said to Jenna. " _That_ was uncalled for," he said to Avon, who felt a disgusting thrum of pleasure that Blake was speaking to him at all. " _Are_ you sick? And why aren't you letting Cally examine you? An abhorrence for the medical bay? Actually, come to think of it, I don’t remember ever seeing you in there.”

"I have yet to be forced to rely on Zen's tender mercies. Despite your best efforts. Which way?"

Blake started them off. "You didn't answer my question. You look like the living dead in this light."

Avon, walking ahead of him, rolled his eyes. "What a keen observation, Blake--is your situational awareness is back from a week's holiday?"

Blake's voice rose. "Perhaps I just had more important things on my mind than the welfare of someone who, for his part, doesn't think much about anyone but himself."

Avon wanted to laugh bitterly. All he thought about anymore was bloody (hah) Blake. What Blake was going to do next, and the way he laughed, and how it was that Blake had come to care so much about everything, and whether he'd be horrified if Avon told him the truth, and what his blood would taste like running across Avon’s tongue. Maybe all of that counted as thinking about himself. After all, a lot of it did touch on what he might like to do to Blake or have Blake do to him--but here he was on a planet that didn't even have the decency to have a real name, helping Blake download a database, because it was important to Blake and Blake was probably right, even if his methods were often idiotic and the man needed a dedicated Feasibility and Risk Assessment Committee like nothing else. And because he apparently needed Blake to tolerate him if he was going to be able to live peaceably, anymore.

The ambush took them by surprise, as is the nature of ambushes. They'd been working their way through the forest towards the compound when five troopers dropped from an observation platform they hadn't seen, suspended in the trees. On a good day Avon might have heard the troopers long before, but this wasn't a good day and he wasn't used to forests––there was so much organic noise that the whole thing shifted into a living miasma. Blake shoved one guard off himself, but this left him vulnerable, and another came up behind him and got his arm around Blake's neck in a choke-hold. The trooper had a gun in hand, and this far out who knew if they recognized Blake as a wanted criminal, or cared who was on a military planet, unauthorized, probably trying to break into their base? The guard looked set to shoot Blake in the head for being more trouble than he was worth.

Avon had never run gracefully in his life--but as whatever the hell he was now, at least he could move _quickly_. Without thinking much about it, he managed to tear the guard off Blake, who rubbed his neck and struggled to breathe (safe, _alive_ ). There was a slight sliver of flesh visible between the guard's jacket and his mask, and Avon, still holding the guard, tugged the fabric down. It ripped in his hand, and, blood pumping in his ears, Avon buried his teeth in the guard's neck. It didn't feel sexual. It felt powerful. The guard felt like meat in his hands (someone screamed, it didn't matter), and his blood was sluggish and then came fast and then _incredibly_ fast. Avon gulped it down and then snapped the man's spine on his knee when he'd drained him. The dead man's eyes were terrified, and Avon could feel his mouth and chin were drenched.

Then he staggered and looked down. Another of the guards had shot him.

"I suppose that does still work--" Avon muttered to himself. "To an extent."

He could feel the damage repairing itself--but not so quickly that he wasn't still about to pass out. He fell to his knees, and then flat on the ground. He heard one of the guards saying that they'd have to take the intruders into custody now, rather than just killing them here. Blake, on his knees, restrained by two guards, was staring at him in shock and horror. Well, Avon thought. You would, wouldn't you.

"I told you I was sick," he managed to croak audibly before going under entirely.

***

Avon woke up laid on a bench in a cell. Blake didn't seem very surprised by this. What the hell _did_ one have to do to impress Blake? Well, Avon supposed that the shot _had_ been healing before Blake's eyes. He pulled down his tunic, which had been runched up so Blake could inspect the wound. Avon was somehow embarrassed to note his chin was clean––that Blake, of all people, must have had to dab the blood off his mouth. Avon turned his head to glance at Blake and then looked back up at the ceiling. The forecast looked grim.

Blake was sitting on a bench across from him, and his fingers were steepled. There was no bracelet on his arm, or on Avon's own. He seemed to be staring very fixedly at a particular brick. O happy brick, Avon thought, giving the ceiling a self-mocking smile.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Blake demanded.

"A children's birthday entertainment," Avon answered tonelessly.

"Avon you _killed_ a man--"

"We were planning to kill them. He was about to kill you. Now is, perhaps, not the hour to discover extreme pacifism."

"No," Blake agreed. "It's apparently the hour to discover that you're a vampire."

Of course the first person to use the term Avon had always skirted would be Blake, who no one could ever accuse of shying from unpleasantness.

"Something like it,” Avon agreed. “I don't know precisely how it happened, so I'm not entirely sure. I don’t have a 'sire' or any appropriate paraphernalia--unless you count one Nigel Avon, and I wouldn't recommend doing so. I wasn’t given so much as an instructional video. I know about as much as you do."

"When did this happen? Was it down on—?"

"Four years ago."

Blake started. "You mean--you mean all this time and you _never told me?_ "

"It seemed like less of a risk."

Blake looked at him, and if Avon had thought he might enjoy Blake glaring at him like he'd been glaring at that brick, he'd been wrong. "You really don't trust me at all, do you?”

"I didn't tell anyone," Avon said like an apology.

"You _should have told me_."

Several arguments about it having been his neck on the line, force of habit, Blake's probable reaction and how Blake very rarely told _him_ things came to mind. But nonetheless, ultimately what Blake was saying was correct, even if it didn't precisely make sense.

"I should have told you," Avon echoed him.

"Are you all right?" Blake asked brusquely, getting up to pace as best he could within the narrow confines of the cell.

"Fighting fit," Avon said with a touch of irony. It could be worse. Blake was making it a point of pride not to be disgusted with him. They were alive. He was near Blake, and it was easier to think when he could greedily suck in air that tasted like Blake and hold it in his lungs, which might not even need air anymore but did, apparently, need this.

“Why reveal yourself _now_? Four years, Avon. You might have let me die."

No, he couldn't have. Any more than he could properly manage to leave.

"We all make mistakes," Avon said hollowly.

"You never have before."

Avon didn't know how to respond to that, other than to remind Blake of the more mundane times he’d saved his life and to suggest this really wasn’t that different, but he hardly wanted to call Blake’s attention to that, and so he said nothing. The same idiotic need that had compelled him to proposition Blake on the flimsiest of pretexts, and to masturbate at night in rhythm with the sound of Blake’s breathing, made Avon want to reassure himself that Blake was truly fine by nuzzling at his neck in a diagnostic fashion. Blake would probably not respond well to that.

"So how does your strength work? How did you lift him like that?"

Trust Blake to already be thinking about how to capitalize on this. While they were still in a cell. There were certainly no flies on Blake.

"I don't know. It's erratic. I can't tell precisely what it's correlated with." He decided not to remind Blake that his being in danger had been truly inspirational.

"Stress?" Blake guessed. "No, or you'd snap off bits of the ship when we were under fire."

"One day, I might," Avon said.

"People can do a lot of things under stress. There are a hundred ways to break, and you haven't yet."

Avon found surprising consolation in this, and breathed. He volunteered a piece of information in gratitude. "It's more likely to happen when I've just taken my iron supplement."

Blake quirked an eyebrow.

"When I've drunk blood," Avon admitted.

"Have you drunk from a human before today?" Blake asked, and it occurred to Avon that Blake didn't think he was a serial killer. Which was somewhat flattering, he supposed.

"No. I didn’t … know if I could stop."

"Do you think you could, now that you've done it?" Blake brought his fingers to his own mouth and Avon seriously considered slapping them down. Even now that Blake knew, he still didn't know. Vampirism seemed actually _less_ of an embarrassing secret than his sick infatuation.

Avon thought the question through, though, because it wasn't a bad one. He hadn't felt out of control, while it was happening. It had been dizzying and bizarre but he'd felt _like himself_ , for the most part.

"Possibly. No--I think I could."

Perhaps he'd be indispensable to Blake, now. More so. Perhaps he'd have leverage. Leverage Avon could never use to make Blake let him touch him without giving up every scrap of self-respect, not to mention Blake's respect. But still, if Blake _needed_ him, then he'd be more likely to listen to him and to let Avon modify his plans in ways that would keep Blake safe. If Blake _needed_ him, he might not be able to shut Avon out again.

"And do you think, in healing that quickly, you used up whatever energy the guard's blood gave you? You came back from the dead in, say, twenty minutes." Blake had already grown quite matter-of-fact about matters of unlife and death.

"I think so, yes."

"Then you might be able to force the door and get us out of here if you drank from me?"

"What."

"Then you--"

"We do _not_ even know that _that_ is how this works."

"It's a risk we'll have to take."

"It is not one that _I_ am willing to take," Avon said with rising panic and anger. "And it is not your decision to make." And if Blake dared try and force matters by taking off his shirt, Avon really would hit him. How could he suggest this after watching Avon brutalize a guard?

"It's worth a try."

" _I might kill you_."

"You won't. Unlike some, _I_ have _always_ trusted _you_."

Avon stared at him. "I--"

Wordlessly, Blake extended a hand. Avon just looked at it, then brought it to his lips. He closed his teeth around a finger tip, and Blake jerked like there'd been a slight electric shock. Avon let a drop of Blake's blood slide across his tongue and down his throat and pulled his fangs back in immediately, to see if he could. The drop's path across his tongue felt as though it had seared. Real blood was exquisite--and he'd barely had a chance to taste Blake. Blake's finger slid out of Avon's mouth, catching his lower lip as it went, and Avon felt himself get hard and planned on saying it was a vampiric reaction, if questioned.

"You can do this," Blake said matter-of-factly. "Come here." Avon tried sitting next to him and awkwardly craning over Blake's shoulder, and Blake muttered "Oh for––" and hauled Avon onto his lap. "There, now you can get at a vein properly." Which, to Avon, sounded a little like 'take me now."

Swallowing, Avon bent to Blake's neck. He wanted to kiss him, but he certainly hadn't kissed the guard. This might well be his only chance and way to have Blake, and maybe he'd finally feel _better_ after he had. It was a little humiliating, to be wanted as a tool. And perhaps this would be an awful parody of Blake's imagined submission. Perhaps Avon would come to resent having been allowed to be with Blake, but only like this. But it was difficult to think of aftereffects when he wanted nothing more than to take what Blake was giving him.

He forced himself to move slowly. His fangs slid out, and he pressed them into Blake's skin without puncturing it. He eased his upper fangs in, and felt Blake exhale.

"Does it hurt?” Avon murmured into Blake's skin, relatively unobstructed.

"No," Blake replied, craning his neck back like an invitation. Avon felt his stomach twist with want. He buried his lower fangs in Blake's neck, and drew up a full mouthful of Blake's blood and held it, tasting it. It was electric in his mouth, slightly bitter––iron—but he knew just from this and the guard that people had their own individual tastes, and that Blake tasted like he smelled.

Avon's cock twitched in his trousers as he took a second mouthful, and he drew the stuff up in slow pulses, letting it run luxuriantly down his throat. As usual, Blake overwhelmed him. He slicked Avon's mouth and he coursed through his whole body, blocking out Avon's senses and filling him with light and power, like everything he valued in Blake was in him, at least for the moment, and Blake had been left undiminished. Avon used his arm to brace himself against Blake's chest in a sort of embrace. He wanted fiercely to make this good for Blake. Blake surprised him by groaning low. Avon drank audibly, unable to help himself from taking a greedier mouthful, and Blake's hand came up and twisted in his jacket.

Avon’s head came up immediately. "Are you all right?" he panted, aware that there was blood on his lips and his hair was a mess and he was hard in Blake's lap.

Blake stared at him like Avon had always wanted make Blake look at him. "Yes. You can … take more. If you need it."

Avon licked his lips (it wouldn't do to waste any of this on a tissue), and Blake's breath caught. Blake was hard too, Avon could feel it. He supposed it was probably the sucking that had done it. He supposed _he'd_ done that.

What the hell? Blake could humiliate him all he liked.

"What about non-casual sex?" Avon asked. "Your answer has no bearing on the escape attempt, obviously. How do you feel about serious, dedicated sex?"

"Oh,” Blake swallowed hard, and Avon’s cock throbbed, “quite warmly.” Blake’s voice was low and intimate, and his eyes were dark and vague with want.

"Excellent,” Avon twisted his hand harder in Blake’s jacket, feeling a stupid grin stretch across his face, “because I'm very interested in having some this evening."

Blake’s vague expression clarified a little, taking on a degree on fondness, and he drew his thumb across Avon’s lower lip, making Avon shiver. "I also know you're in love with me, if you _really_ never intend to say it.” Blake frowned, caught between real annoyance and the fact that he was holding the object of his irritation on his lap, pressing their erections together through layers of fabric. “Of all the asinine choices––clumsily propositioning me like I was _disposable?_ I wanted you to want _me_ , not to _feel bored_. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was out of my mind on some form of chemical reaction, of which you appear to be the focus. I was hardly thinking at all. I do want you. As is all too obvious. I'd go so far as to say I need you." Though Blake probably didn’t need telling—Avon hadn’t been able to stop his hands from stroking Blake’s arms and carding through his hair, in a mixture of lazy, glutted exploration and possessiveness.

He could hardly need Blake more, and Blake seemed to know it and to enjoy that. Avon thought he could certainly come to tolerate the indignity.

"I only suspected you were interested up until then, mind you—stop that Avon, darling, we’re going to need to not have erections when we break out of here. Think about Travis or Decimas or something. Whatever it takes.” Blake pushed Avon back, though not quite relinquishing him from his lap, and fixed him with a stern look. “I was waiting for you to decide you didn't _primarily_ dislike me before propositioning you myself."

"I have never disliked you. I have found you deeply infuriating and will probably continue to do so, but that hasn't caused me to dislike you."

"You contradict me constantly."

"That is not dislike. You constantly say things that require contradiction. And since I am in love with you, I bother to do it."

"I was sure you were when you spent the entire week after that botched seduction attempt trying to glare holes in my head and looking stoic and piteous in turns. If you _had_ merely been bored, I might have insulted you, but not as deeply as that."

“I don’t understand––I was very subtle."

" _Gan_ noticed you were mad at me. He asked if I shouldn't just forgive you, because whatever it had been, you certainly _looked_ sorry."

"Ah." That… was embarrassing, yes.

"Whereas I became absolutely certain I Ioved you, rather than was just interested in pursuing a relationship you, when you were shot."

Avon smiled at him toothily, the blood singing high in him, giving his pleasure a hard, euphoric edge. "What an excellent time to consider the subject. Did the following twenty minutes afford you much time for contemplation?"

“Enough. Are you ready? I’ve calmed down a bit myself. How's the vampiric strength coming?"

In answer, Avon cracked his knuckles and forced the door relatively easily. Outside the door a guard blinked at him and startled. Avon simply slapped him against the wall (the man fell, unconscious), took his gun, and handed it to Blake, who was rolling through his veins and standing next to him, scanning the hallway.

"There are people this way.” Avon nodded.

"And where there are people, there are databases and teleport bracelets."

"Precisely. Stay behind me in case they shoot." Blake gave him one of his most unimpressed looks. Avon rolled his eyes. "If you feel your masculinity is compromised by this, you can fuck me when we get back while I suck you."

Blake considered. "When you put it that way––"

It wasn't _ludicrously_ easy to finish the mission now that Avon was utilizing extreme strength capable of ripping people's throats out, but they'd definitely had worse days. Avon avoided using his fangs (god, it was ridiculous) on the guards––his mouth still tasted of Blake, and he was reluctant to lose it. He'd absently swipe his tongue across his teeth and catch a hint of it and grin maniacally.

He tossed Blake's bracelet to him, and threw a heavy table in front of the door. Blake checked that Jenna had a fix on them while Avon raided the system.

"Where were you? You missed a check in. Vila went down into the woods––"

"You can recall him. We ran into a little trouble. It's fine now. Avon and I have it under control."

"Is that… whistling?” Jenna asked.

"Er. Yes." Blake answered.

"Is that _Avon_ whistling?"

"…yes."

"Has hell frozen over?"

"No, it's significantly stranger than that. He'll have to be the one to tell you. Later. Possibly."

"I wait with bated breath," Jenna deadpanned, closing the channel.

Avon flourished the data cards, and Blake set some charges.

"They'll file a report about what happened in the woods," Avon commented.

"They're about to be blown up," Blake reminded him. "These charges should take out the whole facility. We can't leave evidence of what we were after. And we should try to keep them in the dark about you, as far as possible."

Avon wondered if there was really much point, anymore. The Federation couldn't try and capture him much harder than it was already doing. And it wasn't as though knowing about Avon's abilities would be much to their advantage, as even Avon didn't know much about what his abilities consisted of. He staggered slightly.

"Are you all right?" Blake asked him, taking out the detonator and setting the timer.

"Fine," Avon's eyes widened. "Just a bit… high, I think. Thus the whistling."

"What, on—?"

"Yes."

Blake laughed a little.

"Your neck,” Avon muttered, staring at it as though it was exceptionally interesting.

Blake put his hand to his throat and realized he had a blossoming bruise there. Avon watched him fingering the bite and bit his lip. Blake tugged his shirt up so it covered the wound. "Jenna, bring us up."

In the teleport room, Blake put away the bracelets.

"I'm sorry about my comments earlier," Avon said to Jenna, who gave him a peculiar look in response to the apology. "I was, as you suggested, terribly tired. Your indefatigable leader has convinced me to take some rest."

"I'm going to convey him to his cabin myself, to make sure it actually happens," Blake said.

"Such faith in me," Avon laughed, and Jenna gave him a still more peculiar look, as though he'd come back drunk, which Avon supposed he had. Blake walked him off the deck.

In Avon's cabin, Blake started to shrug out of his jacket.

"Wait a moment,” Avon said. "I can't think with you doing that. Listen. If you don't want to pursue this––if to any degree you were simply using what was at hand to escape an inconvenient situation––then you should probably go. Now. Because I––"

“Oh, for god's sake," Blake huffed, taking off his jacket and unzipping his shirt with irritation.

"Good. No. Right." Avon licked his lips. “Can I throw you to the bed?"

"Are you asking permission, or a rhetorical question about your own abilities?"

"Oh, I rarely doubt my own abilities." Avon's grin was positively giddy.

"Are you very pleased about how this has gone, or actually intoxicated from drinking from me?"

"Yes."

Blake hesitated. "Avon, I'm not sure I can have sex with someone who's not entirely capable of––"

Avon froze and seemed, to an extent, to sober up. "No. Oh no. Oh _absolutely_ not. You forfeited your chance to escape, and now this is happening. It is happening right now, with no additional delays. On the bed. This instant."

Blake's mouth twisted towards the word 'but', and Avon pulled off his own clothing, an unshakable purpose in his eyes.

"If you're sure," Blake said, huskily, as he sat, Avon following him down.

"I'm sure," Avon said, right before licking feverishly at the bite marks he’d left and sinking his teeth back into Blake. It was unexpected, and Blake made a sharp, affected sound. Avon shuddered at it on top of him.

"What's it like for you?" Blake asked.

Avon pulled back, his lips slick and red. "I don't know if I can tell you without it sounding––god, just… just a little more. Please," he murmured, dropping back down to mouth the words against Blake’s skin and playing with Blake’s wounds with his tongue, teasing out little droplets, each of which made his breath catch audibly. "I don't want to take too much. You’ve already…” He cut himself off with a moan when he saw the way his lips had smeared bloody tracks all over Blake as he talked.

"I could get a cloth," Blake offered.

"Don't you dare. Besides, you're busy."

"Fucking you?"

" _That_ was the old plan. The old plan failed to take several key factors into account. Namely that you're currently under me and _bruising_. That is pretty work, if I do say so myself. The new plan is me, fucking you, and biting you again when I'm close. Possibly you biting me as well, actually. I have the sudden conviction that would be… a very welcome addition, to the new plan."

And then Avon would have to try not to say horrible, embarrassing things along the lines of Blake belonging to him when his cock and his fangs were buried in the man and Blake was clutching at him and drawing his blood (oh god, why hadn't he thought of that before, _why?_ ). He would _try_.

Blake smiled, handing Avon a bottle and lying back, hands behind his head. "I've always prided myself on my adaptability."

“Nngh,” said Avon distinctly, launching himself on Blake.


End file.
